


Artistic License

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [6]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, References to Sex, Retribution Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Richard goes snooping through Herald's sketchbook





	Artistic License

Richard tapped his fingers over the drawers, not quite certain about pulling them open.

Daniel had been…very evasive about their contents.

Well.

Indirectly evasive.

Richard has teased him that if Daniel left him alone in his apartment for too long, he’d start rifling through his belongings.

Daniel’s thoughts had darted to the small set of drawers and then very quickly had shot off in another mental direction, the psychic equivalent of bringing up the weather in the middle of a political debate.

Richard watched TV for half an hour, flipping through channels and resisting temptation. He paced around Daniel’s living room. Thumbed through his closet. Made his way back to the drawers.

It would be rude to look inside, Richard chided himself. Wrong to. With all the secrets he was still keeping from the Ranger, surely Herald was owed some privacy. Some quid pro quo?

Some secrets?

Richard slid the top drawer open smoothly and found. Oh? Oh.

Loose paper. A thick, spiral bound sheaf of drawing paper. Pencils…some plain graphite, bundled together by rubber bands. A box of what seemed to be higher quality (if the label was any indicator) colored pencils. Erasers in various states, white out, markers.

The second drawer held a smooth, blank tablet and connecting cable. Various loose leaf sketches in a neat stack. A book of photography, the edges well worn from use.

The third and lowest drawer held a collection of filled sketchbooks.

Which would have been enough to satisfy Richard’s curiosity, Daniel’s embarrassment about the drawers notwithstanding, were it not for the color scheme of one of the lower sketchbooks.

Buried, four books down, was a cover done in geometric blacks. And greys. And Sidestep electric teal.

Oh ho?

He slid the drawer shut with a bump from his shin and took it over to the couch. Unofficial merch, the cover was an overlay that had been painstakingly glued to the front and back of the sketch pad. Richard thumbed open the front page to find a remarkably neat handwritten note, offering a phone number to call if someone found it and below it a date range. Five years old. Sidestep had been dead for a bit by that point. If the dates meant what it seemed like that should, Daniel had filled the book over the course of a year. Ish. Fifteen months or so.

The first dozen or so pages were filled with random doodles, scribblings of semi realistic birds. Human hands. A couple cartoonish expressions on disembodied heads. Faceless block figure bodies. Some.

Aha.

Richard giggled. Some porn, usually focused on lithe young women in. Possibly possible positions? If they were incredibly flexible. One or two of them were detailed; he’d placed scars lightly on them, either unwilling to delve too deeply into that particular desire or ashamed of it. A fourth of the way into the book Richard hit color, a lightly shaded rendition of some very lovely flowers. And on the back of that page was.

Sidestep.

Which he shouldn’t have been surprised to see. It was Herald’s after all. And he’d been a fan. It would make sense that he’d have drawn his hero. The drawing itself wasn’t particularly interesting, a simple, standard hero pose with his hands on his hips. Had he ever actually stood like that? There weren’t any details worked into it. A standing man with Sidestep’s suit on.

Then there were some life drawings. Actual models in various poses. Some were clothed. Most were nude. Had he taken a class somewhere? Well. Obviously he had; Daniel wasn’t the sort to ask random strangers to pose buck naked for him.

The next Sidestep, a few pages down, had.  
Ah.  
Hm.  
More artistic license.

Still fairly rough, it didn’t look like Daniel had put too much time into it. But he’d been generous with the shoulder muscles. And the abs. And the little V at the front of his abdomen (his suit had never clung like that, he was sure) leading down to a VERY rough looking lower half, as though getting nearer to drawing his crotch had thrown Daniel. He clearly hadn’t been a stranger to anatomy so…? Maybe he’d just gotten distracted, or didn’t like the way the drawing was turning out. The next few pages held perspective practices, views of the city only Daniel and the pigeons could safely reach. More porn.

And that was a naked Sidestep.

That was absolutely a naked Sidestep. Unmistakable. Daniel had helpfully left his mask on as if to drive home that yeah, no. That was without question a drawing of what Daniel had thought he might look like under the suit.

It.  
It was.  
Uh.  
Detailed.

Richard could feel himself growing red. Alone. In the middle of Daniel’s apartment. Where’d they’d made love roughly three hours ago.

He coughed, as if to clear some of the awkwardness for the furniture.

The drawing wasn’t obscene by any standards. It was a view from the front, arms relaxed at either side, legs slightly apart to give the figure a more powerful stance. It could have been just another nude. It probably was just another nude. One whose form and figure Daniel had liked and then doodled Sidestep’s mask onto. It still made Richard’s palms feel damp.

Daniel had been less…imaginative with his musculature, likely because he’d been basing it from a real model. The curvature of his arm muscles were less pronounced, the abdominals not quite as boxy and well outlined. He struggled with the legs—years later and Richard could see the faint echoes of heavy lines having been erased. They ended up fairly nicely though, slender and not bulging but still corded. More so than had ever probably been accurate to life. The model’s junk was different from Richard’s own, no mistaking that. But again, once his sketches hit below the hips Daniel hadn’t put too much effort into it.

He’d obviously had to guess at the scars.

Some he’d come incredibly close to getting right. Mostly the ones from fights where the cameras had been able to catch Sidestep getting slashed by the villain of the week. There was some mottling on his leg vaguely where it had gotten crushed by Pyschopathor. Daniel hadn’t been sure about that one—it looked like he’d tried to add the evidence of healed stitches. Assumed Sidestep would go the hospital and get taken care of.

 

The next page was filled with colored practice sketches. Of scars. Small, delicate ones. Deep, wide, ragged edged ones. Healed burns. How they might overlap. Sink in. Stretch with the skin. Daniel had been very deliberate with these particular exercises.

 

The next Sidestep was colored and clothed, now in a dynamic pose, striking upwards at an undrawn foe. Another Sidestep, now joined by Charge, vaulting over a wall, left leg unfinished.

More sketches of hands, now with scars lining them. Legs, in various positions.

More porn, the women’s scars now more prominent. The men they were involved with now bearing some as well.

Sidestep.

Unmasked. Not handsome. Not ugly. Not. Entirely incorrect? It sent a confused tingle of fear up Richard’s spine. When had Herald officially joined the Rangers? Not that long ago, so it couldn’t have been from Ortega’s stories of him. Maybe it was just good guesswork, the shape of his features having been guessed from the mask. The nose was close, jawline the same. The eyes were wider, more innocent and—

 

“Couldn’t resist?”

“God! Zilla on a rampage, Daniel,” Richards hands flew from the sketchbook to the air, a criminal caught in the act. The substitute profanity earned him a muffled laugh. “Didn’t hear you come in,”

“Yeah?” Daniel said, obligingly. He didn’t seem angry, thoughts still light. Tinged with a little embarrassment, but not upset. Good. “Which one were you looking at?” He floated a little higher, trying to peek. Richard held it up so Daniel could see the front. He winced. “Oooh, that’s an old one,”

“Five years,” Richard offered back, shifting on the couch to make room for Daniel to settle in beside him. “Old enough to send off to school,”

“Jeeze. I can’t imagine there’s anything good in there,”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Richard began, pausing as Daniel leaned in to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Personally I like the play by play of you finding out scars were your thing,” Daniel sputtered, cheeks reddening. The small smile on his face faded a bit.

“Oh, I. I think I remember more of what’s in that one,” the smile fell completely. A reedy breeze of fear tousled his thoughts. “Oh god, you saw the porn,” the tense hope that, oh god, please let that other drawing be in a different book.

“I saw some,” Richard prodded the thoughts along. A little helpful nudge: did he mean the naked Sidestep? Or. Daniel’s thoughts fluttered around him, parting easily in their embarrassment. Oh.

Oh ho.

There was a second naked Sidestep? A much more…racy version?

Richard knew he was grinning and did absolutely nothing to reign it in. “Can I see?” He asked out loud, pressing the book into Daniel’s palms. He wasn’t overly keen on seeing more of what a hormone addled Daniel thought he looked like naked, but the way Daniel was squirming was too good to pass up. Daniel blushed, floundered. Excited. Embarrassed. Nervous half because. Well. It was porn of the man sitting next to him and half out of artistic pride.

Richard’s smile deepened. He was sure he could do a much better job if he tried to draw it now. Much better.

 

“Let me see if it really is in this one,” he mumbled, sheepish under Richard’s gaze. There was a brush of desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d thrown that sketch away. Hm. It was that embarrassing? Daniel’s thoughts shuddered for a moment and Richard agreeably pulled back; no need to pull it out of him. Daniel was speaking again anyway, angling the book away from Richard’s line of sight. “Do you remember…or, uh, did you ever see that movie “The Dark Ranger”?”

Richard shook his head. “No. Was it about marshal Charge?”

“And Obscura,”

“I remember her, decent fighter but she relied too much on her boosts,” Richard perked up. “She never played with the big league villains. Went into hiding from what I recall,”

“The movie had her team up with the Marshal to take down a Big Bad and earn herself a get out of jail free card,”

“And the heart of the playboy Ranger, I assume,”

Daniel hesitated. “They…uh, set up a rivalry between Obscura and the Marshal’s vigilante sidekick,” he waited for Richard’s reaction.

Which was to shrug. If you let yourself get upset about movie myths you wouldn’t have time to do anything else. And then the little lightbulb in Richard’s brain flick flick flickered on.

“Did you draw Obscura and I having sex?”

“Um.” Daniel looked back down at the book in his hands. “You, uh, don’t really have to look if, uh,” he wilted. Richard almost felt bad. Almost.

Because Daniel was slowing turning the book around and displaying. Two figures, facing forward, the front figure bent over at the waist. Getting railed from behind by the dude in the Sidestep mask.

 

It was out of Richard’s mouth before he could even think to stop it.

“She looks like you,” blissed out and with much longer hair but.

“I’m aware of that,” Daniel continued miserably.

“Like a lot like you,”

“Yes,”

“Did the actress look that much like you?” Richard needled him a little more, a kid in a candy store.

Daniel flipped the book onto the table and ran his hands over his face. “I don’t know. Probably not, since it’s the last drawing in there. I think I realized what I drew and couldn’t ever come back to it,” Richard let him wallow for a few moments.

“It’s a very good drawing,” he reached out to rub between Daniel’s shoulder blades, incredibly aware of the grin in his voice.

“Thanks,” Daniel muttered between his fingers.

“So,” Richard let his hands fall into Daniel’s view, plucking the sketchbook back up. “I saw other books in there,” Daniel looked up at him, still blank with embarrassment. “Am I allowed to look? Or was this,” he trailed, pushing towards Daniel’s mind the thought that while teasing him was nice, Richard had been caught snooping. Had been doing something he shouldn’t have been. And if Daniel really didn’t want him to look, he’d stop. Daniel sighed, sitting back up.

“The brown covered one is the most recent. But the blue’s where I put all my. All the. Um,”

Richard stood, eyebrows lifting.

“…so the blue one?”

Daniel blushed to his ear tips and nodded.


End file.
